Dying to Run (6 page)

Jesse stared at me like a hungry wolf. His eyes dissected each inch of my chest and abdomen. My Myrna Modest bra wasn’t sexy by anyone’s standards; Nana probably had its double on right now. And Nana would be the first to remind me that I didn’t have much of a chest to fill out the plain, white bra.

But here Jesse sat looking at me like I was delectable. I didn’t know what to say or do. Half of me wanted to cover up and run while the other half wanted to throw myself at him. But if we were really going to die, I didn’t want to ruin a lifetime of being virtuous before I tried to get into heaven.

“C’mere,” he whispered.

I stared at him. The fire in his eyes was cooling. But could I trust either of us to stay in control? He gently pulled me to him, careful not to touch anything he shouldn’t. He tucked me into his chest and rested his head on top of mine. His breathing was ragged as he whispered, “You’re beautiful.”

I curled into him, afraid if either of us moved we’d set off the fire that had almost gotten out of control. It was so amazing to me that he did think I was beautiful, that this man wanted me this much. How was I going to keep my virtue when I wanted him even more? I cleared my throat. “Um, you don’t happen to have an extra shirt in your back pocket?”

“Sorry.”

Obviously he hadn’t gotten the clue that I needed his shirt. I felt stupid asking, but I really needed to cover up. “Can I have your shirt?”

His hands froze on my back. He said nothing.

“Please?”

“Uh, sure.”

Why was he so uncomfortable? Men went without their shirts all the time. “Thanks,” I said. “You’ll look much better without your shirt on anyway.”

Jesse closed his eyes and shook his head. “No, I won’t.”

“Ha!” I placed my hand on his chest, feeling the bulging muscle underneath. “You are such a liar, everything about you is perfect.”

Jesse opened his eyes and looked at me sadly. He lifted me next to him on the bed then pulled his shirt over his head. I gasped. I shouldn’t have, but I wasn’t prepared. The strength and perfect muscle mass wasn’t what shocked me. I’d become so used to the tattoos on his forearms and biceps, they were just a part of Jesse. I hadn’t given much thought lately to where else he might have tattoos. His chest, back, and shoulders were plastered with ink.

Jesse handed me his shirt, not meeting my gaze.

“Thanks,” I murmured, pulling the soft cotton over my head. It was warm and smelled like the outdoors and a wonderful trace of Jesse’s cologne. The sleeves covered my entire upper arm and the T-shirt draped to my thighs. It was bliss being covered again.

An awkward silence stretched on as Jesse studied the carpet and I snuck peeks at his chest. Finally, I got brave and trailed my fingers across his chest and to his shoulder. Bending down, my lips grazed his collarbone. He released a long breath and wrapped his arms around me. “Don’t do that, Cassidy.”

“You look perfect to me,” I whispered.

Jesse cupped my chin in his hand and took control of my mouth for several wonderful seconds, but released me like I was on fire when I touched the bare skin of his chest. “Don’t, please.” He inhaled quickly. “I’m on the verge as it is.”

He wasn’t lying, I’d seen it in his eyes earlier, but now the desire was clouded with sadness. “You’re innocent,” he said. “You’re perfect. I won’t ruin you.”

I guffawed. “I’m not perfect.”

He trailed his fingertips down my jaw line. “You are to me. I love your innocence, I don’t want to take advantage of you.” He took another ragged breath. “I’m so close.”

A warm shiver raced through me. He was right. I was innocent in the never-been-with-a-man kind of innocence, and I definitely planned to stay that way until I got married. But this was Jesse. He was like this exotic superman I couldn’t get close enough to. Learning I had this kind of control over him was thrilling, exciting, and scary. I nodded and clasped my hands together, but couldn’t resist glancing over his muscled pecs again. My eyes stopped on a name emblazoned above his heart.

“Elle?” As warm as I’d been a minute ago, I was suddenly horribly cold. “Who is Elle?”

Jesse sighed, folding his arms across his chest as if the thickness of his biceps could hide what he didn’t want me to see. “You just have to push too hard, Cassidy.”

I raised my eyes to his. “It’s somehow my fault you have ‘Elle’ tattooed over your heart?”

He looked away, studying the door as if it would magically open. Jumping to his feet, he hurried to the door and begged Carlos to let us out.

“No,” Carlos said simply and then refused to answer when the begging turned to blatant bribes.

After a few minutes, Jesse gave up and walked back to me.

“Are we going to talk about it?”

He shook his head.

I grabbed his arm. “We’re probably going to die in a few minutes. You asked me to trust you that we won’t get blown up, but you don’t trust me enough to tell me who Elle is?”  

“Why do you even care?”

My mouth dropped open. “Because, you jerk, I care about you. I want a relationship with you. And you can’t even answer my questions?”

“I will.” He hung his head. “I will. Just not right now.”

“When?”

“If I had my choice?” He shook his head and sank onto the bed next to me. “Never.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

He tugged me into his arms. I resisted for a few seconds, but I really didn’t want to fight with him.  

“I trust you,” Jesse said, “but I can’t stand the thought of you running from me when you find out about my past.”

I shivered. “You have some deep, dark past?”

“Darker than you can imagine.”

I’d guessed as much, but it didn’t make it any easier to hear. “Jesse. I’m not going to run away from you.” How could that even be a concern as smitten as I was with him? “Please tell me. Who is Elle? Why did you do this to yourself?” I traced the pattern of a dragon on his arm, wondering about the story behind each tattoo, wondering how he really ticked inside.

He sighed and started talking, still staring at the door. “When I was in college, we had a party at my dorm. I drank. Way too much. There was this girl there. Elle.” He said her name like a prayer. “She was beautiful and smart and innocent.” Jesse focused on me, his eyes darkened to a dangerous glint. “I killed her.”

My heart was in my throat. I leaned back, praying I’d heard wrong. “You . . .
what
?”

“I, um, I drove her home,” he coughed and looked down, “We got in a wreck. It was . . . awful. I was in the hospital for weeks after and Elle . . .” his voice trailed off, his gaze was tortured as he stared at me.

I swallowed, the dryness of my throat making it impossible to say anything. Maybe he thought I would reassure him that it wasn’t his fault, that his mistake stemmed from drinking too much, but the words of comfort didn’t come. Jesse had no way of knowing. It wasn’t something I talked about. My Grandma and Grandpa Farr had been killed by a drunk driver when I was a young teen. They’d been wonderful, warm and kind, just like my mom. It had taken me years to forgive the driver.

Jesse gave me a few more seconds to respond, then looked at his clenched hands and continued his story like it was a relief to be confessing, “My dad hired the best lawyers. I have no proof, but I think he also paid the judge to give me a lighter sentence. I got community service and a fine, which my dad paid.” He shook his head in disgust.

His handsome face twisted into a scowl of self-loathing and sadness. “I can still see Elle lying on the road. I couldn’t do anything to save her.” He paused, cleared his throat and continued, “After that I got these.” He gestured to his chest and arms. “Elle’s name was this huge reminder. The other tattoos numbed the pain of feeling like I was a murderer, and they made my dad nuts. He wanted me to be like him: fine, upstanding surgeon by day; nasty trafficker by weekend.” He barked a harsh laugh.

“I started drinking more, doing drugs, anything I could to torque my dad off. But then I grew up, realized I didn’t want to hurt someone else. I quit drinking and put myself through medical school, without any help from my dad. I didn’t have any of the tattoos removed as a kind of penance. I won’t make the same mistakes again.” He ran his hand over the couple day’s growth on his cheeks.

As I hadn’t said anything throughout his monologue, I wondered what would be appropriate now. I was feeling decidedly sick. He’d killed a girl driving drunk and then he went crazy drinking and tatting up his body? I felt myself inching away from him.

We sat in awkward silence for a minute.

“What are you thinking?” Jesse asked, dragging out each word as if he was in pain.

“I, um . . .” I hated myself for what I was thinking. I’d just reassured Jesse that nothing would scare me away from him, yet now I was wondering if I should take Carlos up on his offer to rescue me. I straightened. Carlos rescuing me. That was it. “I just had an idea to get out of here. Play along okay.”

He opened and then closed his mouth, his eyes dark and stormy. I knew he needed me to respond, to tell him I understood about his past, but I needed time to think about that and a bomb was ticking. Finally he nodded. “We can talk about the rest later.”

I squeezed his hand and agreed, “Right, later.”

I rushed to the door to avoid his searching gaze and pounded on the wood. “Carlos, you were right. Jesse’s using me. Let me out, please.”

Jesse jumped to his feet, slamming his fist against the door. “I have
never
used you.”

I took a step back, unable to meet his gaze. “He’s a liar and a murderer, Carlos. You said you could protect me. I-I’m scared. Please let me out.”

Jesse stared me down. “You don’t mean that,” he whispered.

I said nothing, waiting for Carlos to do something and not sure if I was lying. I was a bit scared at the moment of the look on Jesse’s face.

The door popped open and slammed into Jesse. He fell against the wall. Carlos burst into the room with his gun drawn. He saw Jesse slumped on the floor and turned to me with a smile. “Carlos take care of you?”

I smiled. “Thank you.” Jesse had better be faking, if he had really been knocked unconscious I was going to have to somehow beat up Carlos and drag Jesse out of here before this place blew. What a mess.

Carlos took a step my direction, focused on me, his grip on the gun relaxing. I had a hard time keeping my gaze from wavering as Jesse rose unsteadily from the ground, at least he was conscious. Carlos touched my face. “So pretty.” If Jesse didn’t hurry up and grab him I was going to have to try out my own kung fu moves to protect my virtue from this slimeball.

Carlos pulled me into his arms, his breath knocking me backwards.

“Thanks for saving me,” I said loudly to cover the sound of Jesse storming our direction. Carlos bent his head to kiss me as Jesse’s hands wrapped around his scrawny neck and squeezed. I pushed out of Carlos’s grasp, ripping the gun from his fingers. Jesse slammed Carlos’s head into the wall and tossed him on the bed. He took the gun from me, tucking it carefully through his belt before giving me a tortured glance. “You’re a good actress.”

I curtsied, not sure how to respond and not sure if either of us believed everything I’d said was an act, but we could worry about our unraveling relationship later. “How much time do we have?”

“Not much,” he muttered, grasping my hand and running down the dimly lit hallway. I sprinted to keep up, my other option being losing my limb. We turned and pounded up a set of stairs. It was a different set than I’d come down. This place was enormous. Sunshine glinted through a window next to the door at the top of the stairs. I could almost breathe freedom.

A tall figure jumped in our path on the landing before the door. I screamed. Jesse pushed me against the wall and dodged the man, giving the unstable body an extra shove so he flew past us down the stairs. I recognized the face as his body bent at an unnatural angle halfway down the stairs from the impact and kept on rolling. “Damon!”

Jesse pointed outside. “Get to the barns,” he ordered, changing course and starting back down the stairs. He was really going to kill Damon if that fall hadn’t already done it.

“What are you doing?” I yelled. “Get back up here.”

Jesse looked at me and then back at Damon crumpled at the bottom of the stairs. He finally nodded. “You’re right, the bombs will kill him.” He took the stairs two at a time, reached for my hand and pushed the door open. “I just didn’t want to leave it to chance.”

I stared at him. “Are you
serious
?”

Tugging on my hand, he started off at a run away from the house towards a huge barn. “You don’t want Damon dead?”

I didn’t answer. Of course in theory I wanted Damon dead, but to do the actual deed? That was brutal. I kept sneaking glances at Jesse as we ran towards the barn. Maybe we should’ve discussed our views on the value of human life and the reasons behind his tattoos before I gave my heart to him. We had just rounded the corner of the barn when the roar of an engine came from the driveway. Jesse trapped me against the wall.

“Police?” I asked.

He shook his head, peering around the corner. “They’re receiving an anonymous phone call from someone I trust about now. I didn’t want them to show up until after it blew.”

More and more brutal. He’d scheduled everything so there was no chance the police would show up before the bombs. He didn’t want anyone to survive this blast.

I heard car doors slam and waited. Jesse’s face tightened. He swore loudly then glanced at me.

“What?”

I waited for an answer. He did nothing but stare at me like something had gone very wrong.

Chapter Seven

I dodged around Jesse. He grabbed me, but I managed to peek around the edge of the barn before Jesse hauled me back. I’d seen plenty—my Nana, gray hair poking crazily out of place, blouse untucked from the cute Grandma jeans I’d picked out for her at Macy’s, kicking and screaming as she was dragged between two men up the front stairs of the mansion. My heart stopped. Jesse clamped his hand over my mouth, guessing correctly that I wanted to scream for her.